Talk:Swahili language/archive2

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[edit] Number of speakers

Couldn't this stat be added to the table on the right? Ninuor 17:15, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

The figures in the first paragraph of the article and those in the table don't agree. Looking at the page history I found several different figures so I didn't know how to correct this. I'm hoping someone who knows the subject will. Kasbjoernsen 07:23, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonology

It would be nice if somebody added a section on the phonology of Swahili. Such a section should answer the following questions:

  • What are the distinct sounds of the language? (This should be a table with traditional orthography in one column, IPA pronunciation in a second, and optional notes in a third.)
  • What are the legal syllables?
  • On what syllables can the stress fall?


Sawahili in Somlia

as am aware of swahili is not spoken in southern somalia or any where ealse in somalia. i think its misleading to include somalia on the list of swahili speaking countries.

[edit] Swahili time

Could someone here expand on the stub article on Swahili time. I tried to write more but found myself ranting. I couldn't figure out how to explain swahili time without making it sound like a joke. Also, maybe there is a better name for it than Swahili time.--Ezeu 00:50, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

"In antiquity, the counting of hours started with sunrise. So, sunrise is always exactly at the beginning of the 1st hour, noon at the end of the 6th hour, and sunset exactly at the end of the 12th hour." — Hour. I don't see why we need a separate Swahili time article. — Matt Crypto 01:13, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Swahili time is interesting enough to have articles written about it. In antiquity? I'm talking about today. I don't see why there shouldn’t be a separate article for Swahili time.--Ezeu 01:27, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I'm just saying we already have an article discussing different schemes of how hours are numbered. Is Swahili time ever going to be more than a 1- or 2- sentence article? Wouldn't it be better just to add a sentence to the hour article? — Matt Crypto 01:38, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I will expand on it. If I cannot make it more than 2 sentances, I will redirect it myself. People travelling to East Africa my be interested in this.--Ezeu 01:46, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Sure. And it might well be that other contemporary cultures number their hours starting at dawn, too -- it would be interesting to find out others (if any) that are. — Matt Crypto 01:54, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Swahili time might be better of as a section of Swahili language. If we would treat it more extensively, it'd probably be something for Wikibooks. — mark ✎ 08:11, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
I've expanded it a little though. You guys might know more about regional variation than I do, so that might be another thing to add. — mark ✎ 08:26, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Good on you Mark. Thanks for expanding on that article. Thing is, what we are calling Swahili time here is used in other east African vanacular as well. In Uganda we sometimes call it village time (with a little hint of scorn). I wish I could find more Internet resources on this subject - or maybe I'll have to do the unthinkable and go to a library. It would also be nice to know if this is a typically east African thing .. maybe it is yet another African phenominon that no one has bothered to research.--Ezeu 09:41, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Ah, you meant that time. No, that's not confined to the African continent, since it's quite natural to divide the periods demarcated by sunrise and sunset into segments. The Chinese seem to have had twelve segments between sunrise and sunset. The Babylonians had a similar system, as had the Egyptians. Check out Matthew 20:5 for another example: "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing." — around the time Matthew was written, they counted from sunrise on. See also our own article hour. — mark ✎ 10:12, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
Oh, and by all means do the unthinkable :P — our articles tend to get better that way. There must be some cultural anthropologists who have researched this; I believe Lévi-Strauss has a book called Telling Time which I'm not sure what it is about exactly but it sounds like a probable source. — mark ✎ 10:25, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

I have redirected Swahili time to Swahili language, and made it a sub-heading. I think Mark Dingemanse's contribution to Swahili time is the best we can ever expect.--Ezeu 21:45, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

One factor that might be relevant to the Swahili method of reckoning time is that the culture is situated on or near the equator, where sunrise and sunset times vary little through the course of the year. Such a system would not work in temperate regions.--BenjaS 19:55, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map of swahili speaking areas

I've added a map illustrating swahili speaking areas. I subsequently changed the map caption to "Areas where swahili speakers are found", so as not to give the impression that swahili is a major language in regions such as nothern uganda and westeren DrCongo (although my relatives in nothern uganda are fluent in Swahili). I am working on a better map with shades that will better illustrate the concentration of Swahili in kenya and Tanzania. Bear with me and let the map stay. Ezeu 03:46, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I like the map. — mark ✎ 14:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] two swahilis

Tobias Conradi (Talk) 07:40, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

This article is primarily about swh. — mark ✎ 08:35, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Regulation

Shouldn't we mention the Swahili Council Baraza la Kiswahili la Taifa in the table under "Regulated by". At least in Tanzania, where most speakers live, it has official status through a law from 1967 (look here). Marcoscramer 14:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kiswahili (again)

I know this has been discussed in the archive at length but thought i'd respond to the paragraph on naming, which stikes me as unconvincing for a number of reasons. For example:

Others argue that calling the language Kiswahili when speaking English only makes sense if you would also habitually refer to European languages as Deutsch, Russki, Svenska, Magyar, and so forth (in preference to German, Russian, Swedish and Hungarian).

This comparison is a little deceptive, as these terms are almost never used for those languages in English, whereas the term "kiswahili" blatantly is, even in Kenyan legislature and government publications (eg here), not to mention a number of examples elsewhere in the world. Remember that English is one of the two official languages of Kenya, and this use of the term Kiswahili in English goes back decades. Whereas a German Studies department at a German university would never be called "Deutsch Studies" in English, even in Germany. I'm not saying the word 'Kiswahili' is preferable, just that it is used, and i'd rather see a more neutrally-worded paragraph. Trying to appeal to a kind of etymological logic will not convince any linguist; if we had to be so consistent we'd have to rule out most of the words in the English language! Any thoughts? ntennis 13:00, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It's rather like calling Indonesian Bahasa, Fon Fongbe, Hebrew Ivrit, or Japanese Nihongo, all of which you hear. (And Bahasa & Ivrit are quite common.) kwami 15:47, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, or even Persian/Farsi. If no-one ojects over the next week or two I'll have a go at rephrasing the paragraph. ntennis 01:28, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Try to keep it about the same length as it is now, ntennis. The etymological trivia of various language names tend to hog a lot of time, effort and space from improvements and appreciation of the actual topic of the articles, i.e. the languages themselves. How about demoting the section for example? Placing it at the bottom with a link from the lead would put it in a place deserving of its relevance to an encyclopedic article.
Peter Isotalo 17:37, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Now done. I cut down the length and moved it beneath the "overview" section and before the "linguistics" sections because I feel it is more relevant to a general readership than technical information on sounds and grammar. ntennis 02:43, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language Timing

Is swahili syllable-timed or stress-timed? It needs to be in the article.--ikiroid 19:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kihehe

I'm almost certain it isn't, but I'm not a linguist, so would someone be able to confirm whether or not kihehe is a dialect of Swahili, as we currently assert in this article? Thanks! — Matt Crypto 12:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

It's absolutely not. Both are Bantu language of Guthrie's 'G' zone, but Kihehe is a member of the Bena-Kinga cluster, whereas Swahili is grouped with some other languages, including Makwe of Mozambique (and even Makwe isn't normally considered a dialect of Swahili). Furthermore, Kihehe is tonal, Swahili isn't. — mark ✎ 16:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I thought not! — Matt Crypto 17:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Zanzibar

"The origin of Swahili is in Zanzibar, an island off the eastern coast of Africa"

Zanzibar is in fact two islands - Unguja and Pemba. Is this referring to one or the other or both? The sentence as it stands is incorrect. Woodwardmw 19:45, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

"Zanzibar" has several meanings, depending on context: "Zanzibar is often used to refer to Unguja island and is also the name of the capital". So it's not necessarily incorrect, just ambiguous. I don't know which is which, but I suspect it refers to Unguja. — Matt Crypto 19:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Yep, it's Unguja. On a sidenote, it is slightly misleading to state that the origin of Swahili lies there; Kiunguja just happens to be the variety that was, for various historical reasons, chosen as the standard variety. — mark ✎ 20:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
I've deleted that sentence because I think it's at best very misleading — the source I've got says that the earliest Swahili speakers likely settled in Northern Kenya. We could also do with expanding that section and explaining the Zanzibari influence. — Matt Crypto 10:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit on number of Speakers

re. The most recent changes by IP 71.195.203.207, are you sure? Your source cited looks OK, but try [1], and [2]. I haven't reverted your edit, but this is worth a discussion, I think. --David.Mestel 18:40, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Ethnologue is an unreliable source. I'm reverting. kwami 20:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

The reference.com article is just a copy of the Wikipedia article.--ikiroid | (talk) 21:33, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consonant table added

I have added a consonant table of sounds.....any feedback? There's a note about syllabic pronounciation of /m/ and /n/, but I'm not sure whether or not syllabic pronounciations of /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ exist.--ikiroid | (talk) 22:15, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Nicely done! Of course I have a quibble, but this is a big improvement, and I'm grateful that you did it.
Do you have a citation to back the claim that the voiced stops are implosive? It's plausible, but I haven't encountered the claim before, and would like confirmation. My Swahili book says that b, d, and g are "as in English". ACW 23:51, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
They are implosive. Ashton's grammar mentions this, I believe. "Implosive" describes the state of the glottis; there isn't necessarily an inrush of air into the mouth. In many languages there is no movement of air at all (no implosion or plosion, just atmospheric pressure inside the mouth). I think Vietnamese is like that. The effect is that the consonants sound very very voiced. I need to check out a few other things, though. The aspirated plosives are missing, and I believe prenasalized stops should be listed as well. Ndizi, for example, I think is two syllables, not three as the note has it. kwami 01:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, I just took this information from my Rough Guide to Swahili book and Omniglot.com.--ikiroid | (talk) 02:15, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
We have to be careful of anything that describes a language in terms of English. Anyway, how does it look now? This is the inventory in Ashton. kwami 05:24, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
It is quite nice-looking now...do you speak swahili?--The ikiroid (talk/parler/hablar/paroli/说/話) 03:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikijunior Wikibook languages

Hi, I asked at Amharic, but Kiswahili would be nice too. Wikibooks:Wikijunior_Languages is the current collaboration. In order to round it out and reduce systemic bias, it would be nice to cover at least one common African language. Can someone go there and add an entry for kiswahili? It would take probably 10 minutes, as it is meant as an overview for children. Sound samples would be icing on the cake. Thanks a lot. - Taxman Talk 01:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] KiSwahili???????

In the article it is said:

The name is sometimes written as kiSwahili, which de-emphasizes the prefix.

Is it true??? I do speak swahili, and I've never ever before this seen this spelling... Ant sources, please? --81.38.175.67 16:28, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm only learning Swahili, but I've also not seen this. I've added a {{fact}} request. — Matt Crypto 18:40, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
I've also never seen it, except in some linguistic publications which want to stress the morpheme boundary between ki- and -Swahili. It doesn't feel as de-emphasizing the prefix to me. — mark ✎ 19:59, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
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